Another Word:Super Duper Sexual Spiritual Black Woman: The New and Improved Magical Negro

— by Chesya Burke —

In 2001, Spike Lee popularized the term the Super Duper Magical Negro (SDMN) while speaking to students at Washington State and Yale University. The reference was about the stereotype of the magical Black person who is written into the story to help the white protagonist on his journey. The characters are often uneducated, male, and desexed. They do not have families of their own (The Stand's Mother Abigail—the human race is her family) or desires of their own (The Legend of Bagger Vance's titular character—his sole purpose is to help the white character). Nor do they exist outside of the white characters' constructed idea of them (Noah Cullen—willingly dies to protect the white criminal character in The Defiant Ones). None of this is news. Everyone's been bombarded with the image of the passive, Black person who only wants to serve.

A little-mentioned incarnation of this archetype, however, has gone relatively ignored or unrecognized. Henceforth called the Super Duper Sexual Spiritual Black Woman (SDSPBW), this epitome mixes the fictional SDMN character with real-life stereotype of the Strong Black Woman to create a character who is a seemingly powerful representation of strong, self-assured authority.

To understand this incarnation, it's best to start by looking at the societal image of the Strong Black Woman (SBW). Supposedly a positive image, this stereotype is constructed as an example of true Black womanism. This stereotype is depicted within society as a Black woman who willingly suffers quietly without help, supporting others selflessly and without reward to herself. The SBW does not complain about her place in society and is held up as an example of how others should be. She is content, accepting, and although not necessarily happy, she is proud of the society she supports.

Unfortunately, within the speculative genre, the real-life image of the Strong Black Woman is often conflated with the Magical Negro to create the Super Duper Sexual Spiritual Black Woman, which endows these characters with powers that are not only used for the good of the broader white society, but that are also not powerful enough change her status in the world.

For the purposes of distinction, I differentiate the SDSPBW image from its predecessor, the Magical Negro, because of the use of three important factors: submissiveness, mysteriousness, and sexuality. Although the SDMN trope sometimes includes the first two, it is the third aspect that separates the SDSPBW from its antecedent. As a construct, both images work to affirm society's ideology and current structure, but only the SDSPBW image uses the sexuality of Black women as a way to defend their current social status.

In other words, much like the Strong Black Woman real life stereotype the Super Duper Sexual Spiritual Black Woman image not only justifies the marginalization of Black women, it is an acceptable fantasy for white society, much like the Magical Negro stereotype. It attributes a false sense of power to Black women through their sexuality which does not translate to actual autonomy for them. Instead it allows white audiences to uphold racial segregation philosophy and ideology.

The sexuality of Black women has been a constructed reality for U.S. society since its beginning. From the image of the temptress slave woman to the Black jezebel, our society has used these images to control Black women's movement within society. For the speculative genre, Black women have often become a fantasy of hyper-magical femininity portrayed through sexual prowess.

Of the many popular and recurring images that support this idea, perhaps most obvious one is the Tia Dalma character from The Pirates of the Caribbean films. Introduced as Davy Jones' erstwhile lover, Dalma is a flirty seductress who is more than willing to help the white characters for little or no reward. Originally the powerful goddess Calypso, she once held control over the seas and everything within it. Now she is "bound" into human form because she rejected her white lover, Davy Jones, and her power is reduced to only aiding the heroes on their journey, as she has been denied one of her own.

For this character, the message is clear. Black women are meant to support white men. If they are unwilling to do this, the punishment is swift and uncompromising. Dalma has been relegated to a mere shadow of her former self, and society is better for it. Without Dalma's current submissive state, the journey of the white men would be in jeopardy, and all of the fictional society would be threatened by the presence of her Black superpowers. Instead, she is depicted as an overly strong, sexual woman, who is rightly regulated to a submissive role for the benefit of this wider fictionalized world.

Another popular image is the longstanding Marvel comic book character, Storm. Best known as the on-again-off-again leader of the X-Men, Storm is the queen of Wakanda (due to her marriage to the comic character Black Panther) and possesses the ability to control all elements of the weather, both on Earth and beyond. Despite all of this power, Storm, like most female comic-book characters, is portrayed in scanty attire, exposed breast and skimpy thongs, as opposed to her male counterparts whose costumes cover their entire bodies. Not surprisingly, her race is a constant presence as Storm is considered beautiful and sexy because "her features don't fit any conventional classification. Not Negroid, Caucasian, or Oriental—yet somehow, an amalgam of the rarest elements of them all. White hair. Blue eyes."

This is quoted directly from an issue of Uncanny X-Men published in 1989—not 1889! Through her white features and the quiet strength of the Strong Black Woman, Storm is accepted as a member and often leader of the X-Men. As with Tia Dalma, the endowment of supernatural powers has not changed Storm's position in society. Rather, these powers have made her more white, relegating her Blackness or "Negroid[ness]" to second-class status. For Storm, supernatural powers not only do not upset the racial and gender hierarchy but they forge a constant battle between her race and gender, causing a binary opposition where she is forced to choose among these two identities. Needless to say, the genre has often chosen the more white identity for her, as evidenced by the light-skinned Halle Berry who played Storm in the X-Men films.

Trying to move outside of these images often proves difficult for Black women. Genre fans sometimes level anger toward Black women when they step outside of their accepted roles. An obvious example of this is with the 2012 controversy of the film adaptation of The Hunger Games. Although the characters of Rue and Thresh are described within the book as having "dark brown skin and eyes," many fans leveled racist insults at the Black actors playing the roles. However, it was the actress Amandla Stenberg (Rue) who received the most flack. Fans tweeted that they were unable to connect to the character after being confronted with her Black presence in the film. The problem was not only that this Black girl did not deserve sympathy, but that she was in the wrong place; she did not belong in their fantasy futurist society. Give her a couple of years, throw her on stage as a teen seductress (àla Lisa Bonet in Angel Heart), and everything will be exactly as it should be.

Taking a look at the broader genre, it's easy to see that not all Black female characters are depicted as Super Duper Sexual Spiritual Black Women. However, it's also easy to see that way too many of them are. The problem is not that there are negative characters who also happen to be Black women (and minority people as a whole), but that there are rarely any contrasting positive images. Even the character of Rue dies after granting wisdom and medicine to the white protagonist. So while the obvious racism is held under scrutiny, the problematic issue of Rue being placed within the text simply to advance the plot for the white character has been left unexamined. Real life Black women don't have supernatural powers, and they aren't stronger than white women—but they are expected to be, so this effects the way people interact with them.

One of the problems for genre writers is that, while trying to be progressive by endowing these characters with supernatural powers, they have simultaneously relied on old, worn-out stereotypes—including the sexual aggression of Black women. Whether inadvertent or not, these genre conventions very well may create a space where Black women are more subjugated through the bestowment of supernatural powers, as that appearance leaves the mostly white audience unthreatened in their patriarchal and racial positions in society.

15 Comments

Mary Grace wrote on September 3rd, 2012 at 3:58 pm:

Storm was the first character I thought of when I saw the title! I've heard that the reason for her early sort of pan-racial look (though actually she looked more alien than anything else in the early comics, because I guess the artists had
no idea how to actually draw mixed-race people---I mean, Storm's not mixed, she's entirely of African descent, but that's how she was SUPPOSED to look according to those notes and she just looks...weird instead) was because they wanted an "Earth Mother" look to symbolize her role as an elemental goddess...which, again, has a lot of facepalming implications. But if you look at how she's drawn now, she just literally looks like a white woman with a deep tan. And there's a subset of fans who actually get UPSET when she's drawn with more African features. So yeah, she gets to be this strong, positive, powerful, beautiful character...so long as she has light skin, European features, blue eyes, and non-African natural hair texture. I get that the X-gene can cause things like blue skin and green hair, but what are the odds it would make The Amazing Caucasian Black Woman?

Mary Grace wrote on September 3rd, 2012 at 4:58 pm:

Another example: Akasha in the movie version of "Queen of the Damned" by Anne Rice.

In the books, Akasha is a white woman. Not as in racially white, but LITERALLY white, because the vampires in that series get paler and paler as they age and develop a strangely crystalline biology like living statues. She was originally from Iraq, but ruled over Ancient Egypt--I think by marrying the king there, if I recall right.

In the movie version, the late Aaliyah, a black woman, was cast to play her. I can understand this casting choice, since Aaliyah looks a lot like how Ancient Egyptians are commonly portrayed in modern media (dark skin, straight black hair, straight noses) and, because of the limited time issue when it comes to movies, there was probably no opportunity to explain her origins beyond "she ruled Ancient Egypt", let alone the nuances of vampire aging, so if she'd been shown as a white woman viewers would probably ask why an Ancient Egyptian looked like that.

However, just because there were fairly valid reasons for the casting choice does not exempt the fact that her movie portrayal is a pretty good example of the Super Duper Spiritual Sexual Black Woman as outlined in this topic. Akasha is very much separated from her actresses' blackness by being portrayed as Egyptian (and thus able to be shown as attractive), as strictly of the vampire race and none other, goes nuts over white guy Lestat who has hot sex with her but betrays her (which he is portrayed as in the right for, since of course she's evil and stuff) at the first chance he gets...which happens in the book too, but gets really eyebrow-raising when you consider he chooses white woman Jessie over her in the movie, which did not happen in the book.

Not to mention that while she is a key figure in the book (HENCE THE TITLE REFERRING TO HER) she actually only has about twenty minutes on-screen in the movie; the film spends most of its time focusing on Lestat and Jessie instead. This result in her character and motives being far less nuanced and developed. Again, I understand that movies have time constraints, but she's the Big Bad and the title refers to her, I think her plans and her reasons for them deserved more attention, because they're really interesting and she does have some good points. I can't say for sure whether she's denied this in the film because Aaliyah is black or not, but she is, to my memory, portrayed in the movie as much more simple in her aims and temperament than the complex woman in the books who truly thought she was saving the world, not destroying it, and in fact seems almost more like a primordial force than a human villain like, say, Lestat in the "Interview" film, and that does have, in my opinion, very possible racial implications. Then again, I could be remembering it wrong (I haven't seen it recently, and I was very distracted when I did watch it) so I welcome any correction on this.

Talking of Mother Abigail in The Stand. Thanks for raising this issue, because it's been bugging me ever since I read that book.

Now, it's a great page turner, and I love a good apocalypse story, so I had to finish it, but it really annoyed me, because apart from Mother Abigail (whose proudest moment in life was when she received approval from the white townsfolk for singing her song, aaarg!) the only other portrayals of black people are

1: A random junkie
2: A Jungle Savage Rapist (should be a meme if it isn't) type executing white soldiers in pink shorts, clearly evoking the white american fear of being sodomized by over-sexualized black men (because the minute law and order breaks down black men instantly revert to their true nature as savage homosexual marauders, of course)
3: A random servant of the Bad Guy.

All in all, by the end (which was a thouroughly disappointing deus-ex-machina, quite literally in this case) I'd become convinced that stephen king is completely racist while trying his best not to be so.

Also, he clearly hates and is afraid of science, as it is quite clearly stated that the logical, scientific people all went to the dark side. Which I found personally offensive, on top of everything else.

In my opinion the makers of the Hunger Games movie used Black actors for the majority of the population of District 11 (where Rue is from) to make the scene where the people rebel and the Capitol stamps them out even more poignant. They used images that we have all seen from Civil Rights footage (men in riot gear confronting protestors; people being knocked down by firehoses; etc.) The color choice was strategic to engage our emotions and appeal to our outrage by using familiar images; which could also be seen as another example of using 'advancing the plot.'

I really enjoyed Burke's argument! Everything is very well said and supported. It made me think of a lot of stereotypes that I never paid attention to, but now after reading this I don't think I will be able to shrug off such limiting, racial, and 'worn out' stereotypes.

Speaking of Akasha (movie version) how about the character's death scene? The most powerful vampire (who is also black) is ripped apart and drained by several white vampires. Some may argue that race has nothing to do with it, since they're not human. But I don't think so.

Mag D. Richarson wrote on September 25th, 2012 at 6:37 pm:

It seems the most ubiquitous stereotype of all is the Evil White Male, or EWM if we need to use acronyms.

Ubiquitous in this article at least.

Chesya Burke wrote on September 28th, 2012 at 4:52 pm:

I'm sorry, Mag, did you have a disagreement about the article's content? Would you like to state it rather than make erroneous claims?

Of course, any attempt to criticise the stereotyping of women or ethnic minorities equates to a criticism of all white males, how could it be otherwise?

You like dogs, so you must hate cats.

As a White Heterosexual Male (neither anglo-saxon or protestant sadly, for the purposes of this sarcastic aside) I am obviously very threatened by this calm and rational critique of cultural stereotypes that never named or blamed me for any of the faults it points out.

@Mag, I agree with you that the Evil White Man stereotype is abhorrent and overused--as is the "Evil Businessman" or the "Smart Asian Sidekick." But this article wasn't about that. It was about the sexualization of black women in science fiction. And, to tell you the truth, the instant I read the title my insides cried out, "THIS is what I've been trying to tell everybody!!!" My friends just laugh at me and say I'm moralistic.

But it's true. American society thinks that by oversexualizing black women, it's empowering them. It's NOT. Women have power far beyond their sexuality; it's high time the superhero industry, for one, learned that being naked doesn't work for armor.

Now, I don't think the SDSPBW stereotype comes intentionally. I know many people who think that's okay--who find it somehow empowering--and it's because they're ignorant, not because they're evil. But it's still an abhorrent and frustrating stereotype for those of us who see black women as individuals, not a social/racial class.

Regarding Pirates of the Caribbean, doesn't Dalma helping the white characters put her in a position where the pirates who imprisoned her break the spell? So she ultimately gets freed and creates a maelstrom that threatens everyone. It seems like she had her own interests in mind as opposed to wanting to just help the main cast.

I could be misremembering the film, but I didn't think she was bound in human form because she rejected Davy Jones. She was bound because the pirate lords feared her ability to create storms. Granted she's a black character who is portrayed as villainous and untrustworthy, but when it comes to the original magical negro stereotype at least, she seems to be acting in her own interests.

Sara Puls wrote on October 31st, 2012 at 12:35 am:

Thank you so much for writing this! It is a well-developed, well-supported, and well-analyzed piece. I am always lamenting female superheros' lack of clothing (and about the obvious stereotypes surrounding Storm in specific). Particularly since they are in the business of hand-to-hand combat on a regular basis! But on a more serious note, your point regarding the real-life effect of all these stereotypes is spot on. This issue deserves real consideration by any writer (among other people, of course).

And in reference to another poster's comments: I agree that stereotypes (of any kind) are something we need to watch out for, question, avoid, etc. But this article is not at all an attack on white males per se.

SDH de Lorge wrote on February 21st, 2013 at 4:13 am:

I accept Ms. Burke's critique unreservedly. However, I want to take it in another direction.

Parental wisdom is portrayed by many of these characters. It offers guidance that is unavailable from the (seemingly ceaselessly) inept and/or violent white authority figures.

It has been going on since slave times, when little white boys and girls (sometimes) learned a modicum of civility and kindness from their black caretakers. Although this was often spoiled by the (childrens') white masters, sometimes it held.

By the time of Jim Crow, maybe it began to pay off. In "To Kill A Mockingbird," Scout had an effective, decent father. She also was surrounded by a humane, dignified black community, from which she learned respect and love.

This is not a rebuttal to Ms. Burke's essay (or Spike Lee's), which strikes me as true throughout. It is meant to call attention to scanty subtext, in which much of the goodness these white folks might hope to achieve will have been modeled and tutored by (otherwise subjugated) black adults.

ming on mongo wrote on November 16th, 2014 at 12:39 pm:

Great article, thanks! In fairness though, aren't we ALL somehow products of our respective culture(s), and still unconsciously subject to these kinda archetypes, tropes, memes and stereotypes? And if so, common sense would suggest that NONE of us is "immune", regardless our respective politics, race, gender… or best intentions.

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Chesya Burke has been writing speculative fiction for over a decade. Her work has appeared in such publications as Dark Dreams I, II, and III: Horror and Suspense by Black Writers, and her short story collection, Let’s Play White, received high praise from Samuel Delany and Nikki Giovanni. Several of her articles appeared in the African American National Biography published by Harvard and Oxford University Press. She is the recent recipient of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) scholarship, and is a juror for the 2012 Shirley Jackson awards.